Online Information Sources

Online Information Sources

With an individual account or other access to the Internet, you can get the information you need to provide access to your own site.

Usually, the provider of an individual account will also provide new-user documentation that describes the basics of using the Internet. You can use the World Wide Web (WWW) and the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) to access a wealth of information on many subjects, including Internet connectivity. If you don't know how to use FTP, see "Retrieving Files With Anonymous FTP" for a short tutorial. How you access the Web depends on what Web browser you're using. Most Web browsers have online help available.

Network Information Centers

Your local NIC maintains archives of useful information on connecting to the Internet. In addition to information about requesting network numbers and registering domain names, they may have lists of local service providers. Most NICs make this information available by WWW and FTP. See "Contacting Your Local Network Information Center" for WWW and FTP addresses for the major NICs.

The InterNIC has produced a series of information bulletins called FYIs. Especially notable is FYI 16, entitled Connecting to the Internet ---What Connecting Institutions Should Anticipate. While this is aimed primarily at U.S. educational institutions, it remains one of the better pieces of documentation on establishing a site on the Internet. The FYI documents are available by WWW and FTP from the InterNIC and from RIPE.

The Internet Society

The Internet Society is a non-governmental international organization for global cooperation and coordination of the Internet. They also provide useful online information--in particular, information on finding an Internet service provider, and a list of network service providers around the world. This information is available by WWW. A subset is available by anonymous FTP.

WWW: http://www.isoc.org/
FTP: ftp.isoc.org

Retrieving Files With Anonymous FTP

Anonymous FTP is a conventional way of allowing you to sign onto a computer on the Internet in order to obtain copies of files that are made available to the public. Some sites offer anonymous FTP accounts to distribute software and various kinds of information. If you have never used ftp, here is a brief summary on how to use the ftp command. To connect to a remote host, specify the hostname on the command line:

ftp ftp.ds.internic.net

When ftp connects with the remote system, it prompts you for a login name. Use the login name "anonymous":

Connected to ftp.ds.internic.net.
Name (ftp.ds.internic.net:guest): anonymous
331 Guest login ok, send ident as password.
Password:

Many systems allow any password and request that the password you choose is your user ID. If this fails, the generic password is usually "guest."

230 Guest login ok, access restrictions apply.
Remote system type is UNIX.
Using binary mode to transfer files.
ftp>

Once connected and logged in, you can use ftp's cd and ls commands to look at the files available on the remote system. To obtain a file from the remote system, use the get command. The get command copies one file from the remote system to your local system. To obtain multiple files from the remote system, use the mget command.

ftp> cd fyi
250 CWD command successful.
ftp> get fyi6.txt
local: fyi6.txt remote: fyi6.txt
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for fyi6.txt (3459 bytes).
226 Transfer complete.
3459 bytes received in 0.46 seconds (7.34 Kbytes/s)
ftp>